Review: 'The Dark Knight Rises' more than shines, and on many levels

Much less disturbing, but still very dangerous, is the Catwoman-like Selina, a grifter whose morality is as flexible as her body. Hathaway, who has a gift for these troubled, sarcastic roles ("Rachel Getting Married"), handles the part the casually assured way that Selina handles the world. "There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne," she whispers chillingly in the billionaire's ear. "You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you're all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us."

With Gotham facing dire straits, it's incumbent on Batman to rouse himself from his self-inflicted stupor, but the question is not only whether he can do it, but whether he should. In the face of someone as brainy, powerful and out-and-out ferocious as Bane, is he out of his league. The answer, as always with Nolan's films, is far from simple.

The director benefits not only from the recurring presence of his performers but also from his top-flight crew, with repeaters who include cinematographer Wally Pfister, production designers Nathan Crowley and Kevin Kavanaugh, editor Lee Smith and costume designer Lindy Hemming. Also returning is composer Hans Zimmer, whose increasingly insistent, percussive score (he told his orchestra "I'm going to treat you as if you were a primeval drum circle") is essential in driving the film forward.

The close collaboration that this kind of creative familiarity ensures is key to Nolan's ability to make such persuasive, enveloping films, as is the director's passion for all things old school and celluloid. He prefers to do stunts and effects in-camera if possible and works without a second unit director. ("If I don't need to be directing the shots that go into the movie," he told the Directors Guild quarterly magazine, "why do I need to be there at all?") He shot more than an hour of "Dark Knight Rises" on the massive IMAX film negative, which improves the image quality even for those watching only in 35 mm.

The impressive success of "The Dark Knight Rises" pleasantly confounds our notions as to where great filmmaking is to be found in today's world. To have a director this gifted turning his ability and attention to such an unapologetically commercial project is beyond heartening in an age in which the promise of film as a popular art is tarnished almost beyond recognition. Wouldn't it be nice if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which snubbed the trilogy's first two films in the best picture race, finally got the message?